The Keeper's Crown, Nathan Maki

Although The Keeper’s Crown is fiction, I believe with all my heart that it captures the spirit of the First Century Christians, and their struggles against the fierce world they lived in. You will feel the power of the Truth they held dear and you will bristle at the intensity of the opposition they faced. For Christians, this is our history and our identity.

The setup is that Quintus is on a hero’s journey of sorts, but you can kiss clichés goodbye because the Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t work that way. (Side note: Have some sympathy Tylenol ready because Quintus and others will get hurt 4,000 times. Some content is not for kids or people with blood pressure problems.) He and Jael are both reaching for hope in their own way, but are living out a complicated brokenness as victims of a barbaric society as well as their own mistakes. Their story covers much ground on the theme of belief. We can know about Jesus, but what will we do about Him? Will we surrender? And what then…?

The Apostle Paul is one of my favorite people in all of history, and I was not one iota disappointed in his portrayal. I spent the first half of the book looking for him around every corner, when I probably should have relaxed and enjoyed the plot. Once he appears, he’s everything I imagined him to be. While we can’t unlock all the mysteries of who he was for sure, this is a beautiful and balanced look at a man who shaped words and ideas that live on in us today. Avoiding spoilers, I’ll just say Paul’s words take on a revived meaning in the context of his life story.

I hesitate to pass judgment, but in case you’re wondering – the time period, places, and people groups are shown vividly through excellent research. “Well-researched” is only a complement if the facts don’t overshadow the story, and in this case it’s all a perfect fit. The characters, their surroundings, and the events all blend together so smoothly into a singular message that as an aspiring writer myself I am challenged: This is what historical fiction is for. It speaks for both the living and the dead, memorializing their stories and challenging us to run the race with the same passion.

Among other golden qualities, I think my favorite fact about this book is that I did not guess the ending. I was off by eighty thousand miles. I read the last page with a mixture of emotions that I don’t think I’ve ever felt before, which is a sure sign of a unique story, well-told, and powerful far beyond the pages.

Read it, and get a friend reading it quickly because you will not want to experience this one alone.

A Conversation with Jesus

Do you ever wonder what it was like to talk to Jesus one-on-one? In John 4 we have details of His conversation with a Samaritan woman. He asked her for a drink, and her response was to put up the guard of the cultural barrier between them. “Jews have no dealings with me.” Most likely she said this while looking at the ground between them.

He said, “If you knew who you were talking to, you’d ask me for a drink, and I would have offered you living water.”

She was skeptical. She asked, “Are you greater than my ancestor Jacob who built this well?”

He said, “Whoever drinks from this well will get thirsty again. I can give you everlasting life.”

He asked for her husband, knowing she didn’t have one, deliberately treating her with a dignity some would say she didn’t deserve. That led to discussing her marriage status. She lived with a man who wasn’t her husband, and she had had five husbands before that.

Jesus acknowledged the entirety of her past, but He didn’t berate her for it.

He saw the grief of a broken heart.

He saw her wounded spirit.

He saw self-esteem in shambles.

He told her, “If you knew who I was, and what I could give you, you would ask me for water.”

He talked to her in monumental terms of the ancient promises and world-changing prophesies about to be fulfilled.

She resonated with those words because she believed the Messiah was coming to reveal these things. She was perceptive enough to know that Jesus was important, but she couldn’t fathom that the Messiah was already close enough to touch.

Can you imagine her shock when He said, “That’s me.”

HE was the Messiah.

He didn’t elaborate on the gravity of her sins.

He simply offered her everlasting life.

In few words, He offered freedom from emotional bondage

He offered healing for her brokenness.

He offered fulfilment for her all her needs.

He made her a promise.

He gave her hope.

The next thing we know, this outcast sinner woman was running around town telling everyone, “Come see a man who told me all the things I ever did.”

Was she excited to tell everyone about her heartbreak? Her brokenness? Her sin?

No. She was excited because someone offered her unconditional love and eternal life. After just one conversation with Jesus, she was no longer ashamed of who she was. She wanted everyone to know about this gift of hope. 

As a follower of Jesus, I want to be able to interact with people like He did. I want a heart of compassion that will overstep the same boundaries and offer the same hope.

I can only speculate, but I would like to think that this lady in return gave her life as an offering to Jesus. I’m sure she was devastated at His crucifixion, and elated at His resurrection. I hope she was in the upper room for the first outpouring of the Spirit. Or maybe she was in the crowd when they asked Peter, “What should we do to be saved?” Either way, she had a story unlike any other. Her life changed on an ordinary day, in an ordinary place, after just one conversation with Jesus.